I’m not entirely sure on what. In the Daily Planet’s Arts Orbit piece on Bedlam Theatre‘s new location in Lowertown St. Paul, Gabler basically does two things:

Lists a bunch of facebook and twitter posts by local people and organizations that essentially amount to “Yay! Congratulations! Exciting!”

Points out that opening a space in Lowertown is risky for numerous reasons, with a list of questions on related issues. In a nutshell: transportation and access, attracting people from Minneapolis, effectively engaging in the lowertown community, and Bedlam potentially getting stretched too thin when they do try to open a new Minneapolis location in addition to the St. Paul space.

The social media quotes include those that I posted as Irrigate and as myself, and some of the comments, replies and retweets that we got off of that. None of which were very memorable or controversial. I wouldn’t exactly list my “yay, happy clapping” retweet as a superb accomplishment in 140 character composition. It’s certainly true that the news has gotten lots of positive response; the link to the MPR article that I posted on the Irrigate page got significantly more “likes” than average and we are just one of a gobjillion pages that posted about it over the past day and a half. Yet personally, I’m left wondering: okay, umm, cute, you follow all of my multiple internet personalities, I follow all of yours, we operate in the same social media sphere, and everybody we know is saying happy words about Bedlam. So you are cataloguing them and making an article out of them. I don’t really count that as “journalism” and am tempted to just say “whoop de doo.”What’s the point? It feels a bit like reaching for an angle that just isn’t there. The questions posed at the end about the future of the project also kind of make me go “Yeah, duh. Opening any kind of business is a risk. Opening an art performance related business, even more so. So what?”

Okay, I’m being a bit harsh. And rather jaded. While it does take up at least ¾ of the entire article, you could argue the social media mashup was intended as a light-hearted introduction to the topic, and I should probably stop giving Jay a hard time about it now. ArtsOrbit is trying to get a discussion going about the challenges Bedlam will face when it takes over the former Rumours & Innuendo Nightclub space. I can put in my two cents about that, since he/they asked nicely, even though I don’t really feel all that qualified to do so. [Read more…]

Opening reception Friday, November 4th in conjunction with Lowertown First Fridays.

Local artist Robyn Hendrix brings her playful, quirky painting style to the walls of the Baroque Room, a new music performance space in Lowertown St. Paul designed to provide an affordable venue for chamber musicians, and to create a diverse and stable early music scene in the Twin Cities.

Opening Reception November 4th 6-9pm, in conjunction with Lowertown First Fridays. Free and open to the public. This exhibit will be on display through January 29th and can be viewed during Baroque Room performance events or by appointment in addition to the opening reception.

Thanks to everyone who came to our opening reception for “Resurfacing” at the Women’s Building, and also thanks to those who were there in spirit but didn’t make it in person. If you didn’t make it, you missed cupcakes:

and art:

“Phantom Brain” and “Phantom Heart,” Watercolor on Paper, 2011.

These are the first two in what I hope will be a new series that I am calling my “phantom organ” series. They are my tweak on the general concept of phantom limb syndrome, and address the way large, life changing decisions can sometimes feel like cutting away or giving up a part of oneself in order to preserve the whole. I am considering making phantom ears, lungs, and bones; additional body part suggestions are welcome and encouraged! Hoping to have two or three more body parts done before my solo show in November at the Baroque Room (opening reception Friday, Nov. 4th as a part of Lowertown First Fridays).

We had a lovely reception and I got all kinds of great comments on impressions people get from my artwork. I love hearing all the different things people “see” in my paintings. DNA unzipping itself was a particularly good one. Thanks again to the Women’s Art Registry of Minnesota for this exhibition opportunity and all my fellow exhibition committee members for their help to pull it off. The exhibition is on display until October 21st and open building hours are 9am-4pm (actually I was told the doors auto-lock at 4:30, but the official hours on the postcards say 4:00 so…yeah). Artwork is on all three floors and in the conference room, so if you go, make sure you wander around to see all of it. The address for the Women’s Building is 550 Rice Street in St. Paul (just a couple blocks north of University).

Keep in touch! I’ll be posting some of the newest artwork in the show on my website portfolio very soon and also revealing some new professional artist portraits taken with Suzanne of Suzanne Shaff Photography. Like my facebook page too, if you haven’t already.

Speaking of exciting things in the works, but jumping way out of my league, the wonderful people over at Springboard for the Arts shared some huge, fantastic news this past week about new funding for arts placemaking along the central corridor in St. Paul. Check out Irrigate to learn more, and/or watch this video of the exciting launch on Thursday. I am so proud of Springboard and the other partners involved in this massive, inspiring undertaking, and feel very lucky to consider several of those Springboard peeps my friends and colleagues.

For those of you who already expressed interest in coming to see a fringe show with me, and for those who have not yet expressed this but are keeping it bottled up inside for whatever reason, here are my potential (not set completely in stone) plans for these first couple days of fringe:

Break for house managing; i’ll be facilitating box office goodyness over at Cult Status Gallery for the BYOV show The 612 by Rogues Gallery Arts. Sounds really interesting. Come buy a ticket from me; see 4 short plays plus a gallery show of visual art!

Phew! I did it! I mean, I planned it. Now all that’s left is to go enjoy. Sunday I won’t be seeing shows because I will be working as a house manager at the Playwright’s Center all day long. Food donations gladly accepted. Hint hint nudge nudge.

August has arrived. The fringeyness has begun to take over the world of Robyn. Here’s 15 shows I’m looking forward to seeing this year; you can click on all the titles to go to each show’s page on the minnesota fringe website (create an account and add them to your schedule, then come back and read the rest of the list!).

Live Action Set. Directed by Sara Richardson. Starring Noah Bremer, Hans Hauge, Kimberly Richardson, Dario Tangelson, and Emily Zimmer. A BYOV (Bring-your-own-venue) in the Mill City Museum’s train shed. The potential for this not to be good is completely inconceivable to me. I’m not sure what the venue capacity is and would suggest getting their early, they have often sold out in the past. Worth the wait in line.

A split-bill dance show with choreography by Christopher Watson and Jeffrey Peterson. I was on the radio in December highlighting Peterson’s fringe piece last year “Thinkingaview” in the MPR Art Hounds Best of 2010 episodes. And he even included that in the show description! So cute! Anyway, this sounds like it’ll be another fascinating performance:

“Stand Up” unabashedly unravels female stereotypes and the objectification of women. Just as “Thinkingaview” provided an avenue to unravel social constructs through the creative use of repetition, “Stand Up” does the same, this time flipping the feminist movement on its head, dissecting our cultural tendencies regarding politics, beauty, power, marriage, child rearing and reproductive rights.

You might remember me raving about this show last year. It’s back! And I think I will go see it again. It was that good. An adorable old librarian finds a book that has been returned when it is 123 years overdue, and becomes obsessed with solving the mystery. It also received the best reviews of any show at last year’s fringe and sold out it’s last show despite being a last minute addition with no pre-festival marketing. Must-see!!!

Another returning hit from last year, by Amy Salloway. Abso-frickin’-hilarious. She likes to rewrite things over and over so it’ll probably be a little different from last year; I know she’s got a different guy playing “Dean” – the unitarian universalist obsessed with buffy the vampire slayer who has given 90% of his heart to another woman who is in a “lesbian phase.” Anyway, I’m sure it’ll be very funny. I hope she still does the squeaky sound effects…go see it to find out what I mean.

Rob Callahan + Allegra Lingo. Two storyteller performers create a show at the last minute when they get picked off the waiting list just a few weeks before the festival. Check out their show page for a preview. Should be, in a phrase Allegra uses all the time, awesomesauce. Or Amazeballs. Or both!

By Joking Envelope, written by Joseph Scrimshaw. Scrimshaw epitomizes Fringe in many ways. If you haven’t been to a Joking Envelope show yet, you should go so you at least know what all the buzz is all about. Generally everything they do is very, very funny.

Created by and starring Christopher Kehoe. I’ve seen his last two one-man shows at the last two Fringes and he is simply a phenomenal actor. Darkly funny, which is my favorite type of funny. And hey, they are giving away nine $20 gift cards to the Republic on opening night!

By Comedy Suitcase. Includes the OTHER Scrimshaw, Joshua, and Levi Weinhagen. In 2009 they did the show The Harty Boys in The Case of the Limping Platypus. Which was really cute and funny. I’m running out of descriptor words other than “funny” so I should probably rap up this list pretty soon…

I’ve actually only seen Tom Reed at improv at Brave New Workshop/Huge Theater and as a host of this year’s 10 Second Film Festival. When he did Parry Hotter and the Half Drunk Twins he was in a crazy tiny venue that was ridiculously sold out the entire festival, and I wasn’t quite as intrigued by last year’s Bite me Twilight since I haven’t read the books or seen the movies. But he’s hilarious! And he’s doing a parody of ALL of the Disney princess movies. So this is definitely a must-see. Another get-there-early one.

I went to college with this dude, Ben Egerman, and now he makes post-apocalyptic comedy shows, this one involving a wolf puppet with a monocle and funny charts drawn on cardboard. Previously created “Please Don’t Kill Me Killler Robots.” Which also involved funny things drawn on cardboard. Me likey.

Ben San Del creates clever stuff and brings together a great looking cast. And I adore their promo images.

Alright, I’m done for now. That’s 15 shows that are 94.28% guaranteed to be either funny, beautiful, inspiring, or intriguing. I also thoroughly recommend perusing the schedule either online or in print and picking a show that you know nothing about, but that sounds interesting, and taking a chance. Discovering something new is the best part of the Fringe. Now…Who’s coming fringing with me?*

*To see shows you’ll need the $4 festival admission button, and regular tickets are $12 per show. 5-show and 10-show punchcards are available which give you a discount of $2 off per ticket; great way to see a bunch of shows yourself or bring a group! Psst: The views expressed here are my own and are not perpetuated from nor endorsed by the Minnesota Fringe Festival.

(I can’t seem to get wordpress to let me embed this. GRRR! Maybe it just isn’t working in the preview & will kick in when I publish…hmm nope) Anyway, Umm yeah, so…this is weird. Which is why it is so, so awesomely fringeworthy. In the fringe-for-all 3 minute preview, the cardboard elephant got karate-chopped in half in a demonstration of a feat of unusual strength. I gave it 4 out of 5 kitties* on my “do I want to see this” scorecard.

More Minnesota Fringe Festival news and recommendations coming soon! I already have a freakishly long list to divulge. Will try to make it more concise so as not to overwhelm those who are not quite as obsessed dedicated as me.

* (The MN Fringe review system is based on a rating of 1-5 “kitties”, which are far superior to “stars” in their ability to communicate the reviewer’s experience. And they’re way cuter.)

P.S. Our Placemaking project at the Friendly Streets Initiative Block Parties is going well! My group is presenting our pLaYMaGinAtiON sPaCE project at one more block party on August 19th. The other artist’s projects are also very fun and worth checking out. I’ve posted some photos of the shenanigans so far which can be found over here on my facebook page.

I sent out a new email newsletter on Friday with more details about summer projects! If you missed it, click here to read it online.

And since I already suffer from a mild case of multiple personality disorder in the social media spheres, I thought why not just keep on rolling? I now have a “Robyn Hendrix Art” facebook page. There’s a link in the sidebar, or you can just, you know, click here.

I went to some openings Friday night. Checked out the new All My Relations gallery, then to XYandZ, then a pride festival art showing at Hennes Art Gallery, where I saw and had a rather awkward conversation with local art scenester Scott Seekins. The next day I was telling a friend about it and accidentally called him Scott Stulen. Whoops. Wrong twin cities art personality, ha! Guess I’m still a little sleep deprived from another crazy busy week. By the way, on his facebook page Scott Seekins is for some reason categorized as an athlete so on my facebook profile he shows up as my one and only “sports” interest. Amusing.

Then in the alley behind Nick & Eddie’s, we saw a guitar player in a centaur costume. Hot.

Made some new stuff this weekend. Also spent a lot of time lying in bed reading Judy Chicago’s book Women & Art: Contested Territory. Had dinner with my friend Jade, discussed art, relationships, and life choices. Feeling a little bit more clear-headed now after several days of feeling stressed and getting strange dizzy spells (I blame my stupid never-satisfied metabolism, grr!). Of course, staying up until midnight blogging again (why does the motivation always come at 11:30pm, huh?) instead of going to bed is probably going to set me back to ground zero when I get up for work tomorrow morning. The holiday pay will make up for feeling completely scatterbrained, right?

New on the table:

new puddles of paint

And I finished one of them:

Untitled (for now), Watercolor, 8" x 10"

Last weekend was Art-a-Whirl in NE Minneapolis. I did some studio crawling on Friday and Saturday, art swapped, chatted with lots of WARM artists (some of whom I hadn’t actually met in person before, yay!) and on Sunday I helped with the photo booth at Suzanne Shaff Photography in the California Building (Suzanne is fairly new to the area, & I’m helping her out w/web and social media stuff). We saw the tornado that hit North Minneapolis from the windows on the 6th floor, and promptly panicked and hid in the stairwell for a little while until the sirens stopped. Pretty freaky. Ooh and I met Amy Rice! Love her work 🙂

Also received the happy news this week that I am one of eleven artists selected as Placemaker Artists in Springboard’s Friendly Streets project with Jun-Li Wang! I don’t know a lot of details yet, but here’s the description they had in their call for artists which is a nice summary of what we’ll be working on:

Placemaking is people coming together and actively working to turn generic public spaces into community places where people can create connections with one another. By “activating” spaces with elements that encourage human interaction – from physical objects such as art, furniture and plantings, to activities such as parties and games, a generic space can be turned into a place where community gathers, happens and thrives. Springboard for the Arts believes artists play an instrumental role in creating place and creating community.

The setting is the Central Corridor Friendly Streets Initiative, a project addressing the design and use of the residential streets immediately north of University Avenue during construction and operation of light rail. The Initiative will host a series of block parties this summer to introduce residents to concepts and methods such as creative placemaking and traffic calming to make streets more user friendly.

I took a workshop on developing successful community projects with Jun-Li in November and am really excited to be working with her again & building on those skills. I am also really excited for the Northern Spark festival coming up next weekend! I am going on the Megalops at 11:00 with an assortment of friends, and who knows where the night will take me from there. It’s another one of those “so much going on that it’s completely overwhelming and impossible to see it all” type of events. Sometimes I wonder if our art community here, as loveable as it is, occasionally tries to do too much at once. Maybe I’m just being selfish because I don’t want to miss anything. How can one possibly choose between listening to sound art radio stuff on top of the foshay tower, playing laser tag at the soap factory, taking in the short film festival at the central library, watching the egg & sperm ride and video projections near St. Anthony Bridge, not to mention all the stuff going on at the Walker’s Nightshift? And that’s just a small portion of all the events going on. AAAHHHHHH…………………………………..

About 1100 pieces of art (I sent in three), all of them on sale for $30 to support a great cause. Lots of other Women’s Art Registry of MN artists are participating, and so are two of my former Carleton art profs Fred Hagstrom and Linda Rossi.

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